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February 25, 2010

Baseball Cards, Notebooks, and Tape

What’s a better Valentine’s Day gift than really old baseball cards? Maybe a coupon for a free hug? [any Modern Family fans out there?]

The answer is nothing.

I had been almost exclusively buying cards online from Checkoutmycards.com. The selection can’t be beat but with that kind of overhead their shipping/handling cost are getting to be pretty high. Luckily, I stumbled upon the online store for my favorite card shop, Three Stars Sportscards in Roseville, MN. They have a huge selection on-line and I’ve recently been shrinking my non-short printed 1971 Topps needs list through them. Their store is a Beckett Marketplace web page so if you can stomach that then I would highly recommend it. If you buy more than say 10 cards the shipping is half as much as Checkoutmycards and the packaging time is just as fast.

Their prices are great too...especially if they have multiple copies of cards at different conditions. I like my vintage cards “a little loved” if you know what I mean. I like them to have been kept in huge stacks with about fifty rubber bands around them by some 10 year old in 1965. So I was able to get two well loved cards of two of my favorite players, Harmon Killebrew and Luis Aparicio, which many collectors would stick up their noses at.

1962 Topps #316 Harmon Killebrew

1961 #440 Luis Aparicio

The card was listed as "poor" on the web page but there wasn't an actual photo of the card included in the card listing...so you're never quite sure what you are getting. Seeing the front I thought I had lucked out and when I flipped it over I liked it even more. You see, I have a long history of baseball cards, tape, and paper notebooks and the idea of another kid doing it is absolutely great to me.

I love checkoutmycards.com except for the shipping costs, but sometimes you gotta spend a little more.

Back in the days before the special plastic pages for cards, if you put your cards in a notebook you had to tape them. I once had a notebook that I put some cards on the cover (most taped on the corners or worse the entire edge, some I think just on the back) the cards in the binder were either taped or glued to the notebook paper ugh. I then wrote on a couple of the cards on the cover something like "Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams cards" or something similar the sad part was I wrote "And Los Angeles Rams" on a 1969 Sonny Jurgensen card (one of my fave QBs) I think I still have that card somewhere I think it is in a binder with Redskins duplicates that is in a box in a closet. I think I trashed the other cards I had written on for the cover.